Need for Speed Carbon
Need for Speed: Carbon is a multiplatform racing video game and the 10th installment in the Need for Speed series. It was developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. The game reimports night driving and features a large quantity of customization options as seen in Need for Speed: Underground 2. Need for Speed: Carbon's plot is a continuation of the events from Most Wanted. It also uses several gameplay mechanics from the game such as the pursuit system. Gameplay The gameplay is based upon rival street racing crews. Players run a crew and can hire specific street racers to be in their crew and the active friendly racer is known as a wingman. Each hirable street racer has two skills, one which is a racing skill (scout, blocker, and drafter) and a non-race skill (fixer, mechanic, and fabricator). Each skill has different properties from finding hidden alleys/back streets (shortcuts) to reducing police attention. Cars driven by the wingmen are also different; blockers drive muscles, drafters drive exotics and scouts drive tuners (although the first two unlockable wingmen (Neville and Sal) drive cars according to the player's chosen car class at the start of the game). In career mode, players have to race tracks and win to conquer territories and face off against bosses to conquer districts. Unlike Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Underground, Carbon had no drag racing. However, Carbon features the return of drift racing, a mode that had been included in two previous installments Need For Speed: Underground and Underground 2, but omitted from Carbon's predecessor, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Most_Wanted Most Wanted]; and new style of event, Canyon Event, based on Japanese Touge races. There are four types of Canyon Events: Canyon Duel, Canyon Sprint, Canyon Checkpoint and Canyon Drift. A special point to note is that Lap Knockout race events are omitted, compared to previous installments. Tollbooth racing from Most Wanted was renamed to "Checkpoint" racing in Carbon. Players can upload in-game screenshots to [http://www.needforspeed.com/ the Need for Speed website], complete with stats and modifications. NFS Carbon was the first NFS game to feature online exclusive game modes. The Pursuit Knockout and Pursuit Tag game modes are modes that allow the player to play as either a racer or a cop. Pursuit Knockout is essentially a lap knockout with a twist. The racers that are knocked out of the race come back as cops and it’s their job to try to stop the other racers from finishing the race through any means necessary. The player that finishes the race wins. Pursuit Tag begins with one player as a racer and the rest of the players as cops. It is the cops' job to arrest the racer. The cop that makes the arrest then turns into a racer and has to try to avoid the cops. The player who spends the most time as a racer wins. Gameplay control methods vary from console to console. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 control steering through the control pad, while acceleration, braking and other controls can be configured and mapped to the different buttons on the controllers. The Driving Force GT and G27 racing wheels can be used, and this is the first Need For Speed title to implement force-feedback and the 900 degree turning radius. On Windows, joysticks and wheel controllers are supported, as well as those that support force feedback. The Wii lacks online play, but fully supports the use of the Wii Remote. Features Need for Speed: Carbon features a new car customization option called "Autosculpt", enabling players to utilize aftermarket car parts and shape/mould the parts to their liking. Players can also have multiple customized vinyls as well. Performance tuning has been redone so that players, as upgrades are purchased, can tune the car for a number of different properties, such as higher top speed or higher acceleration. Unlike Most Wanted, all of Carbon's performance tuning/enhancing and car customizing is done inside the safe house. Boss Race is accessible only through the game's Career Mode. Most of Carbon's focus lies through various canyon races, which the game's theme is based on. Players have to race against other racers, drift through canyons, or even face off against an opponent in a one-on-one competition known as a "Canyon Duel", borrowed from Japanese Touge races. This event has two stages: In the first stage, the player chases the rival and accumulates points faster the closer they stick to the opponent. In the second stage, the roles are reversed and the player's points decline faster the closer the opponent is. As with Most Wanted, cops are everywhere in Carbon. Police chases can break out at any time, including when in Free Roam mode, when racing, or just after a race is completed. Some races do not have a chance of a police pursuit, such as Canyon races, and Checkpoint races. As with Most Wanted, there are 5 conditions. Players have to be careful to avoid getting pursued by state or federal authorities. The Collector's Edition features three additional heat levels. Although the pursuit system is similar to Most Wanted, this feature has been reprogrammed in Carbon to ensure that police were not too dominant in arrest tactics in high pursuit levels. Some of the police tactics (such as the spike strips) while at the same time to make pursuits much harder to escape once a pursuit initiates. Players can choose from many licensed cars divided into three classes as follows: Tuners, Muscles, and Exotics. Each car has its own characteristic ranging from easy cornering to well-balanced road performance. Players must choose a class to start career mode on which the set of unlocks will be different,before choosing their car the player can initiate a test drive option. Players can also unlock cars that are reserved for quick races as the players progress throughout the game and earn reward cards. The Own the City version differs with little regard to car class, and has many areas from the original game altered. There are new game modes, like Escape where the player must escape from a rival crew's territory, Delivery where the players and their crew have to deliver a package to a designated area in first place to win and Crew Takedown, where players have to eliminate a set number of rival racers to win. Crew management allows hiring of up to 5 wingmen per crew, with 2 active for racing. Players can use the crews for all races except for Lap Knockout, Escape and Crew Takedown modes. The city is also divided into many areas, some together into a district owned by one crew, with a total of 6 districts and 13 areas. Every area conquered gives new unlocks and new wingmen. Wingmen also have three different classes; a brawler that takes down racers, a drafter that drafts racers to give speed boosts, and assassins that deliver spike strips the player needs to avoid that can blow a car's tires, aimed for enemy cars. The game also allows free roaming with crates scattered throughout the whole city that when broken, give special unlocks ranging from cash to game art. Police chases are only available in free roam, and are not available in races. Synopsis Setting The game is set in the fictitious city of Palmont. There are three major canyons in Palmont: East, West, and Carbon Canyon. The southwestern border of the city features a sea coast. The city also includes several rivers and a lake near Carbon Canyon.It resembles very much to its predeccessor Need for speed :Most wanted. Palmont is divided into four boroughs at the beginning of the game: Kempton (in the southeast, mostly industrial area), Downtown (east), Fortuna (west, mostly suburbs) and Silverton (north, resort area); one for each of the major crews. A highway system extending through the middle of the city is the main connection between the boroughs. All boroughs except Silverton are initially accessible to the player; access to Silverton is unlocked only after beating the crews in other three boroughs. Plot Having escaped from the police in Rockport, the player is shown driving to Palmont City. A flashback of a race against Kenji, Angie, and Wolf, the three most notorious drivers in the city, comes to the player's mind. The prize was a big load of money. Near the end of the race, the player was winning, but the police suddenly appeared and brought the race to a close, with the player barely escaping, when someone opens him a small alley to escape, and then blocks it over. Darius (Tahmoh Penikett), a street racer who borroved the player his car, tells him to escape Palmont. As the flashback concludes, former police sergeant now sacked from the Rockport P.D, due to the unsucessful pursuit, now bounty hunter Cross (Dean McKenzie) shows up in his Chevrolet Corvette behind him and tries to ram him of the road. Cross pursues the player across the Carbon Canyon area outside Palmont, and player finds the part of the road under construction, and he crashes his BMW M3 GTR at a truck. Cross arrives, wanting to arrest him, but just then Darius and his crew arrive. Darius orders his assistant to pay Cross to leave and the player then is teamed up with Nikki (Emmanuelle Vaugier), who is now Darius' girlfriend, on bad terms. Darius tells the player to regain control of the different territories in Palmont. Winning races one by one, the player acquires territories and ultimately districts from Kenji (Downtown (Bushido), Angie (Kempton (21st Street), and Wolf (Fortuna (TFK), now crew leaders. After beating each racer, the player meets up with a former member of that racer's crew, who want to join the player's crew and reveal their observations regarding the night the player took off from Palmont. After gaining control of all three districts, Darius asks the player to meet up with him. Darius reveals that he was just using the player all along to get more territory, and that he has brought Cross along to arrest the player. Darius leaves the player at the mercy of Cross, but the player is saved by the arrival of Nikki, who tells him that she now realizes everything that happened months ago after piecing together her view of the night and the viewpoints of the other racers. When Darius finds out that Nikki is working with the player, he hires the three previous bosses (Kenji, Angie, and Wolf) into his new crew, Stacked Deck. The player then attempts to conquer Silverton, and oust Darius and his Stacked Deck crew, to exact revenge for Darius' actions. The player begins to win races against the Stacked Deck, and gets his chance to beat Darius for control of Palmont and to accord justice. After finally defeating Darius, Darius surrenders his Audi Le Mans Quattro to the player. Before he leaves, Darius tells the player to "...enjoy it while it lasts, because there's always someone out there who's a little faster than you are, and sooner or later they're going to catch up...". Soundtrack By default, hip hop/grime songs are played when the player is driving an exotic car, electronic songs are played when the player is driving a tuner car, and rock music is played when the player is driving a muscle car, though, this setting can be turned off. These songs were released by EA in very limited quantities on a special edition disc. The songs played within the safe house and other game menus, as well as a small number of races were composed by London techno act Ekstrak, and was released widely by EA, and is available from online retailers such as iTunes, as well as hard copies. Other music, most played in major races, such as Race Wars and Canyon Battles have been widely released akin to the Ekstrak release. This actual soundtrack consists of music composed by Trevor Morris, who has gone on to work with Steve Jablonsky for the 2007 EA RTS game, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Reception Many magazines reviewed the game well. PC Format gave it a score of 7.8 out of 10, saying that it was "engaging enough," but lacked innovation. IGN gave it a 7.9 and 8.2 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions respectively, 2 out of 10 possible points. "It's not revolutionary, it's not brilliant, but it's good, deep racing," said IGN. GameSpot gave praise for adding more movie clips, customization and solid gameplay but was critical about frustrating boss battles and under utilizing police chases. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game an average score of 8.0. Hyper's Daniel Wilks commends the game for its "large gameworld" but criticises it for its "easy, drift course mechanics suck and cutscene 'actors'". The Australian video game talk show Good Game gave the game a 5/10. Compatibility Issues The unpatched Windows version of the game has compatibility issues when playing under Windows Vista and crashes after the EA Logo screen, although most issues have been resolved in patch version 1.4. According to EA's Website Support page, they have not released any games that are supported under Windows Vista and suggest changing the compatibility mode to Windows 98 to play EA games if necessary. In versions prior to 1.4, the game will load with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista if the compatibility mode is changed to either Windows 98 or 95. However, the game still crashes frequently. Deleting or renaming the MOVIES folder, however, alleviates the problem. This has also been linked to the 1.3 upgrade patch. Some users have also successfully run the game out of the box on Vista 32-Bit RTM, which suggests that the issue may have been related to issues in Vista's pre-release code. Links *Need for Speed: Carbon Home Page Official website Category:2006 video games Category:Pc Games